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| The Road (Oprah's Book Club) | 
 enlarge | Author: Cormac Mccarthy
Publisher: Vintage Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $4.58
You Save: $10.37 (69%)
New (105) Used (208) Collectible (1) from $4.58
Avg. Customer Rating:  1607 reviews
Sales Rank: 165
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 287
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0307387895
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780307387899
ASIN: 0307387895
Publication Date: March 28, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Binding tight, clean pages, no writing on text, minor cover wear, average edge wear on glossy cover, lower corner crease, good book.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Would highhy NOT recommend June 17, 2007
45 out of 62 found this review helpful
I know I'm in the minority here, but I really didn't like this book. I knew I was in trouble just by the first 2 sentences. The language should draw you in and move you though the story but McCarthy's unconventional sentence butchering, and flat dialog really falls flat. Even this may be stomachable if it weren't for the fact that the whole thing is just too bleak and lacking in substance. There is barely enough here for a short story. Why this is getting so much acclaim is beyond me. It seems as though people are willing to forgive too much in this book just because it is highly acclaimed and Oprah put it on her list. I think this is definitely a case of the emperor having no clothes on.
Woe Is Me November 10, 2007
40 out of 63 found this review helpful
Pity me. I am so unintelligent, uneducated, unappreciative of fine art, etc, etc, that I cannot enjoy Cormac McCarthy. Reviewers assure me that he is a great literary voice in our time, but I cannot stomach his writing.
First there was All the Pretty Horses. I tried and tried and tried to enjoy it, appreciate it, accept its majesty, but I failed. I read about how Blood Meridian was one of the top five novels of the last 25 years. So, when I came to the Road, I wanted and wanted and wanted this to be the book that broke me to McCarthy and finally left me awestruck in the presence, the sheer majesty, of his genius.
Alas, dear reader, I have failed. Here I find a lukewarm plot (done better by scores of science fiction writers whose attempts were, gasp, far more literary than this), shallow characters, and little reason to keep reading. In fact, I didn't. His prose is all sentence fragments, poor diction, forced metaphors, etc. Why do I continue to expect good writing from writers?
Please, buy this book immediately and prove me wrong. Tell me what a woeful philistine I must be not to appreciate such obvious talent. Pray that you will never be afflicted by this horrible curse that leaves me expecting enjoyment from reading, craft in literature, and truth in art.
Get over yourself. April 28, 2007
39 out of 66 found this review helpful
Okay, even when the meteor that killed the dinosaurs struck the planet, *some* things survived, but not in this book. Just a few lonely, and terminally hungry, humans and a couple of mushrooms. I do not discount the scientific evidence for nuclear winter, but come on. Among other things, his book has the standard cliche of the post-apocalypse novel: cannibals. Anyone who's read any Science Fiction has already become tired of this theme. Since we've all heard of the Donner Party and a certain plane crash in the Andes, we all know that, in the event of extreme starvation, people will eat each other. It's just not that shocking anymore. Not to mention the fact that, in this book, I find McCarthy's writing completely pretentious and full of itself. For example, he doesn't use apostrophes in his contractions and skips commas. Also, in this lifeless, dead world were supposed to think "Wow, these two individuals and the 'good guys' they finally meet are 'carrying the fire' for humanity!" In a world as dead as the one McCarthy portrays here, I found it impossible to believe that there's any fire left to be carried. All in all, an obvious attempt at a message novel that left me impatient, annoyed and feeling that I had wasted my time by reading it.
 The Road to Nowhere February 29, 2008
39 out of 43 found this review helpful
My review will be done as dialogue presented in the same style and format as dialogue appears in this book (grammatical errors intentional):
The boy looked at the man. So, did you like the book?
It was ok.
Just ok?
Yes, just ok.
Why didn't you like it?
I don't know.
You don't know?
I guess it really didn't go anywhere. It just kind of meandered.
It did?
Walk, search for food, build a fire, try to stay dry, avoid the bad people and then get up and do it all over again.
Is that what happens?
It did. The characters, except for one, didn't have names so sometimes there would be two he's referred to in the same paragraph and you did not know which he was he.
Huh?
And the dialogue did not use quotation marks. Apparently established authors can break grammatical rules and people will think it is genius.
I suppose.
And when dialogue ran several lines, the author didn't use said to break up who was talking so you didn't know if it was that he or the other he talking after a while.
Who?
He.
I'm not even sure who you are talking about.
Me neither.
I'm not sure which one of us is talking right now either.
Me neither. Will we be ok?
You mean you and me?
Yeah . . . I guess.
Did you say that or did I say that?
Who cares.
 "This is the way the world ends...." March 30, 2007
37 out of 53 found this review helpful
In a barren, ashen landscape that was once the United States of America, a weary man and his young son are traveling south in search of the ocean. They scavenge for food and shelter, and they must constantly avoid marauding bands of fellow survivors who would prey on them. The one thing that sustains them on their way is their ferocious love for each other. THE ROAD is the story of their heartbreaking journey.
Every now and then, when we need reminding, a great writer shows us one possible future for our species if we continue on the path to self-destruction. In 1957, Nevil Shute gave us ON THE BEACH, and now, 50 years later, Cormac McCarthy has given us an eloquent new version of the same cautionary tale. We didn't listen then. Perhaps we can learn something now.
I have rarely been so moved by a work of literature. To call this the most important novel of 2006 is an understatement. Read it and weep. Read it and be uplifted. Just read it--before it's too late.
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